SamOF

I'm not conflating two different parts of the COC. And you're correct—AA can't contractually cancel an itinerary because the ice cream machine is broken. You're precisely making my point: the CoC outlines the exclusive reasons that an itinerary may be cancelled.

Your argument is that once a passenger is rebooked after a cancelled flight, not flying the rebooked flight becomes grounds to cancel all remaining segments in the itinerary. I do not believe that argument holds up, either by the terms of the CoC or using the sort of common sense that any DOT bureaucrats or judges would bring to the table. AA cancelled the flight. The OP wants to fly all segments as booked except for the segment that he metaphysically cannot fly because AA cancelled it.

justhere

But we aren't talking about reasons for cancellation. We are talking about remedies. What can a passenger do and not do if there is a cancellation.

Once the passenger is rebooked and accepts the new itinerary, that's now their ticket/itinerary and the rules for skipping a segment are clear. You skip and the rest may be cancelled. That is clearly defined in the CoC so it would hold up. If the passenger does not accept the new ticket/itinerary, they can get a refund. That is also in the CoC. There are no other choices defined in the CoC or by the DOT. What you are suggesting is that the airline has to honor an itinerary of the passenger's choosing. That definitely isn't in the CoC or in the DOT rules.
Correct, but AA has, by way of the CoC, offered an alternate itinerary that the passenger can fly or not. If not, they will get a refund. The rules about cancellations are clearly spelled out. Not only what may cause a cancellation but what remedies are available. Is it one-sided in favor of the airline? Very possibly, but the CoC for the most part is that way. We may not like it, we may not agree with it, but it is what it is and nowhere does it say that the airline must accept the itinerary that the passenger proposes.

Heck, it's posted here just about every day in many forums. HUCA. Don't like what they tell you? Call back for a different answer. I wanted to do this or I wanted to do that and the airline said "no". Call back and try again for a different answer. I realize many times that is because passengers are given wrong answers. I'm not talking about those times. I'm talking about someone's itinerary being changed and being advised to call back to see if a preferred routing is available.

In the OP's case, the original routing was AAA-BBB-CCC. It was changed to AAA-DDD-BBB-CCC. OP wanted to change the itinerary completely and just make it BBB-CCC. While AA certainly has the power to do that, they aren't required to. Often they will gladly do something like AAA-EEE-BBB-CCC or AAA-FFF-CCC, etc., or even a co-terminal of AAA and/or CCC. But an essentially complete change, even if it involves some of the original airports, isn't necessarily something they will do, nor do they have to under the CoC and DOT rules.

That's why I said you are conflating different parts of the CoC. You're taking part of the reasons for cancellations and part of the remedies for cancellation and trying to just apply parts of each as a whole.

raehl311

What if the passenger doesn't accept the new itinerary, calls and drops the outbound, flies the return, and requests a refund for the unflown segment?

What AA is representing as the terms of their contract serves only one function, which is to make it difficult to rebook to another airline when they cancel your ticket.

And even if their CoC actually says that (which I don't think it does), that doesn't mean it's an enforceable provision. You can't hide "and if we don't give you what you paid for, we get to substitute whatever we want and keep your money" in a contract of adhesion and expect anyone to enforce it.

wetrat0

(Emphasis added).

What people are trying to tell you is there's no such thing as this. You can't just "call and drop the outbound and fly the return". It's not a thing you can do. Without the cancellation, that would require reticketing at the prevailing one-way fare for the return. With the cancellation by the airline, you can either (a) change to a new round-trip itinerary with the same origin and destination or (b) cancel the remaining unflown part of the ticket for a refund. In this case, the "remaining unflown part" is outbound and return.

There is no option (c) to cancel part of the unflown itinerary for a refund and keep another part of the itinerary. You would have this option if you had booked as two one-way tickets (which has its own risks, most obviously that you could wind up in the opposite of your situation where one way is canceled and you'd like to rebook the whole RT on another carrier, but you would be stuck with the return flight whether you wanted it or not because it's on a different ticket).

By the way, don't read what I have said above as saying you could never find an agent to do this for you. Agents do make customer service exceptions all the time, depending on your status, type of ticket, etc. With Basic Economy the agents have been instructed not to make exceptions. Ultimately, you're looking for flexibility after specifically buying an ultra-inflexible product, which is why it's not surprising that you're not finding it.

justhere

wetrat0 explained it and I've posted it at least twice, I think. Accept or don't accept new itinerary are the two options in the CoC. Change the itinerary to something completely different isn't one of the choices. So if they don't accept the new itinerary the only option left is to cancel. With the exception of previously noted option that you can request a better routing and/or time and they'll normally do that but dropping the outbound is a material change to the original booking. And again, not that the airline can't do it if they want to, but the CoC doesn't provide for it so if the airline won't do it, you are left with the accept or cancel options.

Not sure which part you are referring to with "And even if their CoC says that", however no one is saying that the CoC says "If we don't give you what you paid for, we get to...keep your money". The CoC does say that number of stopovers, stopover cities, times, etc may change. If there is significant change to those items, you can normally get a refund and time changes over 61 minutes you can definitely get a refund as per the CoC.

ijgordon

justhere

I'm not sure which viewpoint you are finding amusing but I'm guessing that you are referring to the "fly the new itinerary or cancel the ticket" interpretation as being amusing? But as that's what the CoC says I'm not sure even though it doesn't seem to fit your interpretation earlier in the thread.

LINDEGR

What do you mean by the second part? Are you claiming that AA can walk back its own published CoC? If so, why do you feel that way?